SHOES’

concept

As the title reveals, shoes and pumps are the main character in Tomoko’s installation performance SHOES’. Tomoko has a great fascination for physicality and fashion. She stretches the focus of the audience to her feet, to the ceiling and to the monitors on the floor. Shoes are the dramatic counter point for the music she plays and performs. Shoes become almost human beings: they dance, they cry, they make love, vanish and die.
After the performance the installation is open to the public.

SHOES’ is a piano recital, an installation and a solo performance. SHOES’ is part of Tomoko Mukaiyama’s solo series Sonic Tapestry. This is part V. Her sonic projects are always presented in a visual environment. Her collage method of bringing music compositions from different musical periods together is what marks her series. She masters the piano literature from Baroque to the Romantic era and from contemporary minimalism to piano music with electronic accompaniment.
The collage technique in visual arts is for decades a known fact, but there is a world to discover in music collage as not many musicians have entered that area like Tomoko does. In SHOES’ parts of e.g. the French Suite by Bach are entwined with Three 2-Part Studies for Piano by American-Mexican composer Conlon Nancarrow. By mixing these two works and to frame them with improvisations and visual layers, the pieces sound different and are influencing one another. Tomoko: “Some compositions are based in the collective memory. These compositions you often hear on the radio, as phone tunes or are being used in films and documentaries. To use this music and mix it with something else, whether that is music or something visual, it creates a new context, a new listening and experience. This is what I find interesting to discover.”